-->
My friend and blogging mentor (let’s call him Jim A.) advised me to not be negative, nor to launch personal attacks in my writing, pointing out that we (conservatives) are in the right and should argue with facts, not vitriol. I wholeheartedly agree with him…most of the time…but there are exceptions to every rule…like here…so I am happy to say I loathe Joe Biden (and don't worry Jim, I have facts to argue the case).
Yes, I said it – I loathe Joe Biden. And as much as I have problems with Barack Obama, I find myself praying for the President's health, lest Fightin’ Joe take his place.
What makes Joe Biden worse than the collection of miscreants (Republican and Democrat) that populates Washington? Is it the sheer meanness and lack of morals/scruples he exhibits against his political foes? Is it the acts of plagiarism denoting dishonesty, untrustworthiness and lack of character? Or is it that he has been wrong on pretty much every foreign policy issue that he has ever weighed in on and now sits the proverbial one heartbeat away from the Presidency? If you answered “all of the above”, read on.
Joe Biden first made an impression on me during the summer of 1991, when I, then a young lawyer, was following the Clarence Thomas Supreme Court confirmation hearings. I was first drawn to the hearings because I was offended that Bush 41 would nominate a man to the Court solely based on his race – clearly there were more qualified candidates. But my displeasure with Thomas turned to admiration and it became clear that the person who lacked the qualifications, morals and intellect was not Thomas, but Biden, who could best be described in the immortal words of Michael Bolton (of Office Space fame, not the singer, although he might agree), as a “no talent ass clown”. Clearly Biden would stop at nothing to try to destroy an honorable man. And thank goodness his competence in the Thomas hatchet job was what you would expect, so he failed at that too.
My impression of Biden led me to do some investigation of him, which in 1991 was not as easy as it is today (what did we do without the Internet?) And what did I find out? Among other things, that he graduated from a 3rd tier law school where he finished at the bottom of his class (did I mention that he finished 506th in a class of 688 as an undergrad at the University of Delaware?) and failed a law school class for committing plagiarism. And that he had to drop out of the 1988 presidential Democratic nomination race because he plagiarized a Neil Kinnock (Neil Kinnock for God’s sake!) speech. He then practiced law for one year before going into politics. I could not believe his background qualified him to pass judgment on Clarence Thomas (don’t get me started on Robert Bork), let alone be the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee – or do much of anything for that matter.
Over the years I watched Biden become increasingly powerful in Washington (there is a good side to this, as I can now tell my children “if Joe Biden can be one of the most powerful men on earth, just think of what you can do”) and kept mental notes of just how much of a clown he really was. But for all of the character flaws and lack of talent he possessed, it was the area of foreign affairs that really caught my attention. How could a man be so wrong, so consistently and still have a job? Were the people of the fine state of Delaware paying attention to this embarrassment? And when Obama picked Biden to be his running mate to add foreign affairs gravitas, I was horrified. Was Obama paying attention? Now Biden (along with his gravitas) has the President’s ear on foreign affairs and for that reason, we may all be in trouble.
The following is a random (albeit linear) walk through the Joe Biden Foreign Affairs Hall of Fame – and while reading this, keep in mind that “military expert” Biden obtained five draft deferments during the Viet Nam war and later was disqualified from service because of an acute bout of asthma he had as a teenager (see “chickenhawk – definition of”):
1970s – Biden opposes giving South Viet Nam aid against North Viet Nam. The eventual cut-off of funds leads directly to the overrun of South Viet Nam and indirectly to the horrors of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge.
1980s – Biden opposes aid to the Nicaraguan Contras who are fighting Daniel Ortega and his merry band of Marxist thugs. He also opposes aid to El Salvador so they can fight the Marxist insurgency of the notoriously murderous FMLN. He consistently opposes the Strategic Defense Initiative and pretty much any attempt to upgrade our nuclear deterrent.
1990 – Biden votes against American action to push Saddam Hussein’s Iraq out of Kuwait; a military action that enjoyed the cooperation of a huge multinational coalition.
2003 – Biden votes for the American invasion of Iraq (something that I and many Conservatives were never really thrilled with); a military action that enjoyed a very limited amount of cooperation among other nations and something the Democrats blame for our alienation from the rest of the world (whatever that means).
2006 – Biden advocates a partitioning of Iraq into three states along ethnic lines; a “solution” that most likely would have led to vast bloodshed.
2007 – Biden strongly opposes the “Surge” of American troops into Iraq, an action that ultimately saved the war effort.
Let’s move to the present – 2009. Among the myriad issues that Joe is advising the President on is the increasingly tenuous situation in Afghanistan. Biden strongly advocates a limited footprint in Afghanistan, in contravention of the wishes of General McChrystal and his experienced military staff. This story is not yet over, but given the above history, my only question is “what’s the opposite of ‘limited?’”
